Supplemental Materials

What is included with this book?

The Used and Rental copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

Summary

50 Essays: A Portable Anthology is the best-selling value-priced reader in the country because its virtues don't stop at the price.

Its carefully chosen selections include enough classic essays to reassure instructors, and enough high-interest and high-quality contemporary readings to keep things lively and relevant for students. The editorial apparatus is more extensive than in competing value readers, but still is flexible and unobtrusive enough to support a variety of approaches to teaching composition.

This collection provides diversity of background, diversity of age, diversity of issue, and, despite a recurrent whiny complaint on this page, diversity of political opinion. Some of its essays are personal and introspective, while others are public and informative. Some ruminate on an idea, while others endorse a position. Some test ideas, while other argues positions.

In its third edition, 50 Essays continues to offer selections that instructors enjoy teaching, at a price students won't resist, but with more editorial emphasis than before on the critical thinking and academic writing skills of today's composition courses.

Author Biography

SAMUEL COHEN (Ph.D., City University of New York) is an assistant professor in the English Department at the University of Missouri where he won the 2008 Provost's Outstanding Junior Faculty Teaching Award. He is the author of After the End of History: American Fiction in the 1990s (University of Iowa Press, 2009) and has published in such journals as Novel, Clio, Twentieth-Century Literature, The Journal of Basic Writing, and Dialogue: A Journal for Writing Specialists. He is also coauthor of Literature: The Human Experience, Tenth Edition.

Table of Contents

Preface for Instructors

Alternate Tables of Contents By Theme By Paired Readings By Rhetorical Mode By Purpose By Chronological Order

Sherman Alexie, The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and MeMaya Angelou, GraduationGloria Anzaldúa, How to Tame a Wild TongueBarbara Lazear Ascher, On CompassionJames Baldwin, Notes of a Native SonDave Barry, Lost in the KitchenWilliam F. Buckley, Why Don't We Complain?* Rachel Carson, The Obligation to EndureJudith Ortiz Cofer, The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria* Jared Diamond, The Ends of the World as We Know Them * Joan Didion, On Morality* Annie Dillard, SeeingFrederick Douglass, Learning to Read and WriteBarbara Ehrenreich, Serving in FloridaLars Eighner, On Dumpster DivingStephanie Ericsson, The Ways We Lie* Stephen Jay Gould, Sex, Drugs, Disasters, and the Extinction of DinosaursLangston Hughes, SalvationZora Neale Hurston, How It Feels to Be Colored MeThomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence* Steven Johnson, Everything Bad Is Good for You: GamesMartin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham JailMaxine Hong Kingston, No Name Woman* Verlyn Klinkenborg, Our Vanishing Night* Audre Lorde, The Fourth of JulyNancy Mairs, On Being a CrippleMalcolm X, Learning to Read* Bill McKibben, Curbing Nature's PaparazziN. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy MountainBharati Mukherjee, Two Ways to Belong in AmericaGeorge Orwell, Shooting an Elephant* Plato, Allegory of the Cave* Michael Pollan, What's Eating AmericaRichard Rodriguez, Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual ChildhoodMike Rose, “I Just Wanna Be Average”* Scott Russell Sanders, The Men We Carry in Our Minds* Eric Schlosser, Kid Kustomers * David Sedaris, A Plague of Tics* Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of OthersElizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of SentimentsBrent Staples, Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public SpaceJonathan Swift, A Modest ProposalAmy Tan, Mother TongueHenry David Thoreau, Where I Lived, and What I Lived ForSojourner Truth, Ain't I a Woman?Sarah Vowell, Shooting Dad* Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' GardensE.B. White, Once More to the LakeMarie Winn, Television: The Plug-In DrugVirginia Woolf, The Death of the Moth

Documentation Guide

Glossary of Writing Terms

Rewards Program

Currently unavailable

Customer Reviews

ExcellentMarch 12, 2011

by Melissa

I bought this textbook for a college class, and was pleasantly surprised to find its content not only valuable to students, but also appealing to the average reader. The essays span a wide variety of time periods, authors (both famous and obscure!), and outlooks; however, the prevailing theme seems to be one of social issues, both current and historical. I highly recommend this textbook to anyone who would like to gain a better grasp of exactly what essays are all about. As an aside, the indexing is extensive and amazingly thorough.

Flag Review

Please provide a brief explanation for why you are flagging this review:

Submit

Your submission has been received. We will inspect this review as soon as possible. Thank you for your input!

so good!!!March 11, 2011

by camille

Wonderful textbook I Love it, I purchased this textbook to help compensate for the lack of interesting essays in our textbook and was delighted to find that this anthology is organized with teachers in mind. In its third edition,50 Essays continues to offer selections that instructors enjoy teaching, at a price you won't resist, but with more editorial emphasis than before on the critical thinking and academic writing skills of today's composition courses. Useful book in general, great content.

Flag Review

Please provide a brief explanation for why you are flagging this review:

Submit

Your submission has been received. We will inspect this review as soon as possible. Thank you for your input!

50 Essays: A Portable Anthology: 5 out of 5 stars based on 2 user reviews.